


the footrub

by icedteainthebag



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:24:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4818494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedteainthebag/pseuds/icedteainthebag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>what's in a footrub?</p>
            </blockquote>





	the footrub

**Author's Note:**

> Imported from icedteainthebag @ LiveJournal; originally published April 6, 2009.
> 
> This is for Scooly42, because she gave me the prompt and some pr0n. but generally, this is to everyone who has made my day simply amazing.

She loves shoes, but to love shoes, to love really, really _fabulous_ shoes, one has to be willing to put up with a certain amount of aching soreness in the arches, a spot rubbed raw here or there, and occasional swelling of various parts of her foot, especially when dealing with heels taller than 2", which are actually the only shoes she owns. She can't help it. They make her calves look stunning. She rarely admits it, even to herself, even when she notices people _noticing_.

Namely, Mulder. He notices. He notices a lot as of late.

They arrive at her apartment fairly far into the evening after a 16-hour stint on their feet--apparent ghost sightings at a lighthouse on the coast of Virginia, and Mulder felt the driving _need_ to rush out there to interview "witnesses" in the broad daylight of morning, and then they had to wait until the sun set to actually try to _see_ the aforementioned specters, and amazingly enough, they _didn't_ appear.

Why she chose today of all days to wear her new Lauren platform pumps--heel, 3-1/2"--was beyond her, and she was regretting it now as she nearly limped through her doorway. Mulder followed her with his nearly omnipresent sack of take-out food--First Wok, which had fairly decent sesame chicken, but always-overcooked _lo mein_. She kicks off the pumps to the corner by her closet--for a moment, she feels so free--and gingerly settles her weight on her flat feet.

_Ouch_. She grimaces and sucks in a breath. He glances at her from the kitchen. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she says, headed for the couch with the smallest of steps. "Just...bad shoe day. Too much time on our feet."

He's ripping through packaging like gangbusters--he must be ravenous--and spilling food all over their plates. "No more than usual."

She sits on the couch and puts her feet up on the coffee table. They're throbbing. "New shoes make any long day longer."

He's hustling over to the coffee table with the food. He slides her plate to her in a sideways type of pass and her fork nearly flies off her plate. He settles and digs in. "What's with the shoes, anyway?" he asks, his mouth full of noodles.

"Well, Mulder," she says, sliding her fork through the sesame sauce and licking its prongs. "Shoes were primarily, intially, designed for protection of the feet."

"Scully," he says, swallowing. "Please don't launch into a brief history of shoes on my account."

"You asked." She takes a bite of the chicken. Never has sweetened salt tasted so blissful.

"I mean," he says as he continues attacking his entree, "Why do women wear shoes that they know are horribly uncomfortable?"

"I think you know why." She raises her eyebrow and takes a mouthful of chicken, chewing and watching him suck down his noodles.

"Because they make your legs look hot?" His fork is scraping against the dish. He's nearly finished with his entire damned plate already.

"Apparently, you know a little more about shoes than you let on," she answers, licking the sweet sauce off of her lips. He catches her eye and smiles, nearly tossing his empty plate onto the table.

"I learned a sacred few things from my mother," he says. "And I heard many a lament over the plight of women's footwear."

"Mmmm," she murmurs with a mouthful of jasmine rice. "What else did you learn?"

"Well," he says, and he pauses, glancing at her feet, then up to her eyes, then down to her feet again. And then he reaches over and slides a hand around her legs and pulls them toward him, off the table in one quick swipe. She nearly drops her plate.

"Your mother taught you how to paw at women's legs?" she says as he drags her tingling, aching feet up into his lap. She turns her body so that she's facing him, and she's not quite sure what she's doing, so she takes another quick, nearly too big bite of her chicken.

"No. I learned that quickly through experience." She watches as he cracks his knuckles outward, rolling his head on his shoulders. "Experiential learning, Scully, is sometimes the best way to acquire new skills."

She can't believe he just said that. She takes a slow breath in, the warmth of his lap radiating to her heels. "Yes. I'm quite aware of that, Mulder."

She nearly jumps the first time she feels it, the pads of his fingers tracing slow lines up the bottoms of her feet. It hurts, but it feels good.

Really, really good.

She doesn't say a thing--which is unusual for her, she's the first to admit--when his fingers lazily trace circles over her sore, swollen heels. His thumbs graze under the delicate arches of her feet and she gasps as tingles shoot from the skin under his fingers up her legs.

"You should take better care of your feet," he says, his voice lower. He looks up and meets her eyes. "They're the only ones you have, you know."

Her mouth is dry and she's trying to relax, but the soft, then firm pressure of his palm against her foot is doing something _unmentionable_ to her. So much for relaxation. She shifts her hips and stretches her toes, encouraging him to continue in her own subtle way.

His fingers travel the tops of her feet, and they're warm against the soft, sensitive skin he finds there. She leans back into the arm of the couch as he cups each foot in his palm to rub more intently. It feels so good... _so good..._ She bites her lip as his hands slide up to her ankles, fingers circling around them. His motions as he rubs her ankles are rhythmic and calming.

"Is that better?" he asks, as if he has to ask.

"Yeah," she breathes, and she wants to close her eyes, but she doesn't want to stop looking at him, his hair falling over his forehead as he's bent over her feet, as if he's analyzing something very important, as if every move he makes is of utmost significance.

"You can close your eyes," he says, glancing up at her. There's a current in that glance. It hits her fairly hard and she gulps and nods, then takes a breath and closes her eyes.

She can feel his fingers playing over her feet, lingering in precise spots, sending pins and needles everywhere, a combination of pain and pleasure that makes her lips part with a small pant.

Then she feels his warm, surprisingly soft hands slowly start sliding up her ankles...then inch by inch, up to her calves. She surpresses a moan--she doesn't know where _that_ came from--as he traces circles on the aching backs of her calves, then squeezes them firmly.

His fingers wrapped around her legs, he slides them further up, to her knees, to the line of her skirt, and then just when she's about to move, or say something, or actually act on the dirty thought that's suddenly sparked in the back of her mind--something about sitting up, pushing him down onto the couch and kissing him so hard it would take his breath away--he slides his hands back down and pulls away.

"There," he says.

She opens her eyes and he's still looking at her. She smiles and tries to ignore the pulse she feels between her legs. "Thank you. That feels better."

He nods, keeping her gaze for longer than usual, and grabs his plate again. "I'm going to finish up the _lo mein_. You want anything else?"

She has to think about her response, weigh her options, before she says anything. "No. I'm fine."

-


End file.
